Ded Moroz
by Aconitum-Napellus
Summary: On a sleeper train on the way to Oslo, Illya has concussion, and the train gets stopped by snow. This is gently slash - i.e., nothing steamy. After all, poor Illya has concussion. A Down The Chimney Affair gift for Pfrye, who asked for A Christmas surprise, emotional, forgotten memories.


The movement of the compartment is a gentle sway, a rocking like a cradle, a rhythmical clunk each time the wheels pass over a join in the rails. The sound is a shushing, a blood-pulse noise in the ears. His head is ringing with pain, his forehead tight and hot. He is tired in every bone, and the shush of the train melds with the shush of his pulse in his head, rocking him, rocking him like a baby. Exhaustion makes a powerful lullaby. He finds himself falling into sleep, jerking awake, falling again.

It's no use. He's so tired, and the bed is soft enough beneath him. It's no use ignoring the hot pull of sleep.

((O))

Lips on his forehead.

'Sleeping beauty.'

Napoleon's voice. Napoleon's lips on his forehead, gentle and warm. He comes awake enough to flinch.

'Bruise,' he says half-incoherently, because there's a bruise on his forehead, and although Napoleon's lips didn't touch it, he's wary.

'I know, honey,' Napoleon says. 'That's why I kissed the other side.'

'Wh'are we?'

'Still a good six hours from Oslo. It's almost midnight.'

'Mm,' he grunts.

He opens an eye, and looks. There's only one small light on, and the curtain is drawn across the window. His head is aching fiercely.

'Weather?' he asks.

Napoleon twitches the curtain aside.

'Snow, snow, and snow.'

The light from the compartment catches just the first few inches of flakes, blurring past the window. The rest is darkness.

'We're not moving,' he realises, becoming more awake.

'Yeah, because of the snow. There's a drift up ahead, filling a cutting. We're sat here until it's shovelled out.'

'Oh,' he says. 'Drift?'

'The snow is filling a cutting up ahead,' Napoleon tells him patiently. We can't get through until it's cleared. It's snowing hard out there.'

'S'it tomorrow?' he asks.

'Just about. Midnight,' Napoleon tells him again. 'How's your head?'

'Aches,' he says.

He lifts a hand to touch tenderly to the place where his forehead is bruised. There's a great fleshy swelling, and it's warm under his fingers. He's not sure how long he was unconscious from that blow. He wasn't even aware of getting out of the compound. He only started to come round when he was slung over Napoleon's shoulder, swaying, being carried through the freezing cold, through the scrubby pine forest that surrounded the place.

'Here,' Napoleon says, and he holds out a couple of white pills in one hand, a glass of water in the other. 'Take these. It's time.'

'Is that why you woke me up?'

He shuffles a bit more upright in the bed, and takes the pills, then the water.

'I woke you up because you have concussion, and I need to check on you every so often.'

'Oh,' he says. It's probably a good idea. He thinks he might be confused. Sleepy and confused.

'They're giving away drinks in the buffet car,' Napoleon tells him. 'Feel up to a ramble down the train?'

'Uh-uh,' he says. He doesn't feel like rambling anywhere. He feels just fine right here, warm in the narrow bed.

'Bring you something back?' Napoleon asks.

'Bring me something back,' he says.

He lies in the bed and watches Napoleon leave. It's very quiet in the compartment once he is gone. No movement. No sound. He's warm under the covers but he can feel the little creep of cold, something licking from the edges of the room. It must be very cold outside. He's not sure where his gun is, or the rest of his clothes. He's ridiculously unprepared for trouble. But there isn't any trouble; not now. Snug as a bug in a rug, Napoleon would say. He's tucked away from harm. Harm has found him well enough already tonight, and now he's safe.

He touches a hand to the bruise on his head again. He remembers the piece of wood coming round, swung in the knotty hands of a Thrush goon, the wood hitting his head so hard that the world seemed to explode. That's all he remembers about that. That's all there is. The remnants of that blow are a pounding headache and the sharp pain of the bruise, a sick feeling in his stomach, a feeling as if the train were still moving, even though it is still. He doesn't want to move at all.

((O))

He must have dozed off, because here Napoleon is, back again, and there's a rich scent of chocolate in the air.

'Oh,' he says, blinking. 'Hello.'

Napoleon bends, and his lips touch Illya's forehead, well away from the bruise.

'Hello again. How are you doing?'

'You brought me a drink?' Suddenly he's thirsty.

'Yep. Hot chocolate,' Napoleon says, holding out a china mug. 'Ready to take it?'

He shuffles himself up against the pillow.

'Thanks,' he says, taking the warm cup between his hands.

He takes a sip. It's still hot, and so thick and strong. He can see the swirl of cream in the liquid, not quite fully mixed in. There's another taste there, something behind the chocolate. Whiskey, he thinks.

'I'm not supposed to have alcohol, am I?' he asks.

'It's not that much,' Napoleon assures him. 'Just a taste, really.'

Napoleon has hot chocolate too, instead of something purely alcoholic. Maybe it's because Illya can't drink. Maybe it's because he wanted something hot and comforting too. It's been a hard few days. There had been times when the line between life and death had seemed very thin indeed.

Illya sips and sips again, and the thick, indulgent chocolate slips down his throat. He tries to remember when he last had a meal. Was it before they broke into the compound? When was it? Sometime yesterday? Breakfast, maybe. Had they grabbed a breakfast in the hotel before heading out? There are gaps in his memory. He'll have to do his best to fill them before he writes the reports for Waverly.

'When is it?' he asks. 'Is it the twenty-fourth? Twenty-fifth?'

'Twenty-fifth, just,' Napoleon tells him. 'Christmas Day.'

'Ah, another relaxing Christmas at home, fire lit, nothing to do,' Illya says dryly, and Napoleon smiles.

'Some people would pay a lot to be in a sleeper train en route to Oslo on Christmas Day, you know.'

'How much extra would they pay for concussion, and being stuck in a snowdrift?' Illya asks.

Napoleon strokes a hand over Illya's golden hair. 'That's a special bonus, only for very good little agents,' he says.

He's nearing the bottom of the cup. The drink is so rich, and warm inside him. They'd got cold, hadn't they, in that facility? It was far, far north of Oslo. Snow everywhere, snow thick on the ground, patches of ice. Twenty-four hour darkness. Stars like frozen diamonds in the sky.

They'd sat outside for a long time before the chance had come to get inside. They'd squatted in the ice and snow, feet chilling to painful slabs of meat, cheeks and noses burning, fingers aching and searing with an agony of cold in their gloves. When they'd stood up to get inside it had been hard, for a time, to make anything work, hard to make fingers be dexterous, hard to make feet move softly on the icy ground.

'We were cold,' he says, and Napoleon smiles at him. He knows it was a random thing to say. He knows Napoleon understands.

He's hot now. Suddenly he's so hot, and his stomach is churning. It's a wave overtaking his body. His head pounds with every beat of his heart.

He pushes back the covers. He's there in bed in his undershirt, his poloneck gone, underpants but no trousers.

'Hey, where're you going?' Napoleon asks him.

He feels like gasping. His stomach is lurching.

'Sorry,' he says. 'Sorry, Napoleon. Feel sick. Fresh air...'

He casts around and sees Napoleon's long winter coat, hung on a hook by the door. He's pulling it on, and out in the corridor before Napoleon can say anything. His bare feet are cold on the carriage floor. He looks left and right, and goes left, to the end of the carriage, to the door. He pushes down the window, and cold rushes in against his face. He fumbles with the outside handle and the door swings open, and he almost falls out onto the ground. He's four feet above the level of the snow, which undulates away from him in ghostly billows, palely lit by the light from the train. Snowflakes are whirling in the air. The cold is like a flood of water around him.

He sways to his knees, hangs his head over the sill of the door, and vomits thickly into the snow.

Napoleon is behind him, a hand resting gently on his back, between the shoulder blades.

'Okay?' he asks, when the retching has stopped.

Illya pants and spits. The world is still whirling, but he doesn't feel so hot, and the most intense nausea has subsided. Steam rises from the snow in front of him.

'Are you all right now?' Napoleon asks. 'Illya? Can you come back to the compartment?'

'Yeah,' he says, but he doesn't make a move.

He feels like he's in just the right place at the moment, kneeling, head down, hands curled over the sill of the door. There's the smell of train, of diesel, rubber, and of frozen air. He raises his eyes enough to see what's out there, sees the snow again, the flakes falling, and the dark silhouettes of pine trees quilted with snow like a scene from a Christmas card.

'Come on,' Napoleon says, putting a hand under his arm.

He helps Illya stand up, closes the door with a slam, pushes up the window, and leads Illya back to the open door of their compartment.

'Into bed,' he says.

Illya is shivering now, cold again, dizzy. The floor is rocking under him, but the train still isn't moving. He sheds the coat onto the floor and gets into bed and Napoleon pulls the covers up over him. Napoleon goes into the tiny bathroom and comes out with a glass of water.

'Come on, now. A little water,' he says. 'Just a bit. Okay?'

Illya swills the water around in his mouth. He wants to spit it out, but there's nowhere to spit. He swallows instead.

'Oh, how I love concussion,' he murmurs.

Napoleon strokes the hair back from his forehead, gently, avoiding the bruise.

'We'll be in Oslo by morning,' he promises.

'Yes,' he says.

((O))

Maybe he's been asleep again. There's been some kind of gap. He's blinking, and Napoleon is sitting there on the edge of his bed, his back a little to Illya, his eyes on the window. The curtains are a little open, and the soft light from the compartment is still shining on falling snow.

Illya lies there, looking up at the bottom of the bunk above him. Napoleon should be asleep up there, but he's not; he's sitting here, on the edge of Illya's bed, on guard. He just lies, watching his partner. He can see a little of Napoleon's cheek, a little of his nose. How he loves that cheek and nose. He wants Napoleon to turn so he can see his eyes, and the way his dark fringe sits across his forehead. His feeling of tenderness swells. He is brusque with Napoleon, but he loves him so much.

He tries to remember what happened in that complex. Was Napoleon injured at all? Were they captured? He can't remember. He can't remember if they were captured, and he was hit trying to escape, or if they weren't captured at all. Perhaps they were just discovered on their way out or in. Was the mission even successful? He can't remember. He had a little camera in his inside pocket. That was meant for photographing the documents. If he got hit round the head then they were discovered, at any rate. They didn't manage to slip in unseen, photograph the documents, and get out.

It disturbs him that he can't remember. He tries and tries, but there's a great blank. He remembers waiting in the snow outside with Napoleon, growing so cold. His hands and his feet singing with the cold pain. He focusses on that memory, and tries to make it grow. They crouched there until there was a gap in the guard, one man heading off to the right of the building, the other to the left. They had been banking on that gap, that only came around every hour. They had uncurled themselves, unstiffened themselves, stretched out arms and legs. They had crept as swiftly and quietly as they could, to that little unguarded door at the side of the building. It would be unguarded for two minutes. They had about sixty seconds to go.

He remembers standing outside the door, holding an explosive strip in his fingers. He remembers lifting his hands to the Yale lock, and pushing the end into the narrow keyhole. Then –

Does he remember the flare of light, or is he remembering a hundred other flares from a hundred other doors breached in this way? He thinks he can remember the sudden flash of the white on the snow around, but maybe that's a false memory. Maybe he's putting together the knowledge of what the little explosion looks like, and how it would reflect on snow.

It's a terrible thing to not be able to rely on your memory.

There's nothing, then, until he came around, hanging like a sack over Napoleon's shoulder, his head throbbing and aching, a sharp pain in his forehead, and the tightness of swelling in his skin.

He coughs, because his throat is sore and sharp from the vomiting, and Napoleon turns as if he has heard a shot.

'How are you doing?' he asks immediately.

Illya gives him a sickly smile. 'I'm all right,' he says.

Napoleon looks at him critically, but whatever he thinks, he doesn't voice it.

'It's about two,' he says, before Illya can ask.

'Have you slept at all?'

Napoleon smiles. 'Me? I don't need sleep. I'm a vampire.'

Napoleon is staying awake to watch him, Illya knows. He'll stay awake all night. He won't let himself sleep until there's someone else to be on guard, or no need, no matter how tired he is.

'Did we get the photos?' Illya asks.

He can't even remember where that camera ended up. Did he get the photos, and lose the camera? Everything is a black void, like looking into a dark nebula in space, something that blots out every star, every point of light. He doesn't like that feeling.

'You got the photos,' Napoleon tells him gently. 'I've got the camera. Don't worry.'

He puts his hand over Illya's, gently stroking the back first with his palm, then with the tips of his fingers. Illya turns his hand over and Napoleon circles his fingers on Illya's palm. He knows how much Illya likes that, how that feeling undoes him and takes over every nerve.

'Don't stop,' Illya says, as Napoleon's fingers slow.

'You know I'm human too?' Napoleon asks him. 'I have limits of stamina.'

'I know,' Illya says. 'But don't stop.'

Napoleon smiles tolerantly, and continues to stroke his palm. The shivering feeling runs up his arm, directly to his brain. It's like a drug.

'What happened in there?' Illya asks. 'In the facility?'

'You don't remember anything?'

'I remember – blowing the door. I remember being hit round the head, I think. A guy with a piece of wood. Was it – ' He can't remember if it were inside or out. Was it a bit of broken chair, a baseball bat, a bit of tree branch or fence post? It swims about in his mind, but nothing comes clear. 'Waking up,' he says. 'I remember waking up.'

'There's not much,' Napoleon says. 'We got in there. We went our separate ways. Do you remember the plan?'

He tries. He remembers something written down on paper. He remembers, perhaps, the blueprints of the building. Or is that the blueprints of another building, somewhere else? Did he ever look at paper plans, or is Napoleon talking about something verbal, something they sat together and discussed, but never wrote down?

'I don't know,' he says. 'I don't know.'

He feels sick again. He's determined not to be sick.

'Are we still stuck?' he asks.

'Still stuck,' Napoleon nods. 'They think it might be longer than they first imagined. Everything's frozen. It's Christmas Day. Short on labour for digging, and it's really cold out there.'

Is there something in Napoleon's body language? Relief? Is it relief, that Illya has changed the subject.

'Oh,' he says, because he's afraid he's going to be sick again.

Napoleon looks at him closely.

'Can you make the bathroom?' he asks.

Illya is already up on his feet and across the tiny room. He swings open the narrow door to the tiny bathroom. There's no more than a toilet and sink in there. He kneels and leans over the toilet, retching. It's always a surprise how much can come, when you've already been sick before, when you haven't eaten anything else since.

He stands and turns on the tap and splashes water onto his face. He looks at himself in the mirror. Does he look green and ghastly because of the concussion, or is it just the colour of the light in here? There are bags under his eyes. That's nothing to do with the light. The wound on his forehead is a great swollen lump, vivid, stormy purple-red, with a crusted scab at the centre. He's surprised they let him get on the train. He doesn't remember getting on the train.

He sways. Napoleon's hand is on his arm again, leading him back to bed, helping him down, tucking him in.

'Feel like sleeping?' Napoleon asks.

'I don't know,' he says.

He's tired and not tired. His head is thrumming, thrumming, thrumming with every pulse of blood. His skull feels thin and fragile.

((O))

But he sleeps. He isn't aware, again, of falling asleep, but then he's waking up. Napoleon's hand is on his arm, gently shaking it.

'Illya,' he says. 'Illya. We need to go.'

'Hmm?' he asks. He's warm in the bed. He doesn't want to go anywhere. 'I don't – Why?'

'The conductor's been round all the cars. They aren't going to get the train moving tonight, and we need to disembark.'

'Hmm?' he asks again. It's so hard to shake off sleep.

'They don't have the power to keep heating the cars, so we need to go into the nearest town and find a bed,' Napoleon tells him. 'They're organising a couple of hotels.'

'How far?' Illya asks. He feels so warm in this bed. He doesn't want to move.

'Not sure. Not more than half a mile, I think. You need to wake up and get your clothes on. A lot of people have already left. There's no road from here, so no transport.'

He sits up slowly. The air is already getting cold in the compartment. Napoleon hands him his clothes, piece by piece, and he pulls them on as best he can under the blankets. At least they were both dressed for cold. At least he has a good coat, gloves, and stout boots.

'You think you can make it?' Napoleon asks.

'Yeah,' he says thickly.

He still feels sick. His head is swimming and pounding. He doesn't want to walk. He doesn't want his aching head to be exposed to that tight cold. But he doesn't have a choice.

'They're escorting as many people as they can,' Napoleon tells him, 'but I told them we'd be okay. We'll be okay, won't we?'

'Yes,' Illya says.

He's sitting on the edge of the bed now, trying to gather the impetus to stand up, to go out into the cold.

'It'll be better when we have a room,' Napoleon assures him. 'A good little Norwegian hotel room. Maybe they'll be squeezed for space and we'll have to share a double, hmm?'

'That would be nice,' he says, but he feels sick.

((O))

When he steps down out of the carriage, there's no one there at all. The world is so still it doesn't seem real. The snow has stopped, the clouds cleared away, and an almost full moon is shining its monochrome light onto the snow. It's like a weird daylight of black and white.

His sick has been snowed over, at least. No one would know it was there. There are footprints in the snow, but no people. It's almost eerie. A trail of footprints, and the light shining out from the carriages, but no people.

'Look,' Napoleon says, pointing, and then he sees them; the backs of the last few people disappearing between the snow-laden trees. 'We better follow before we lose them.'

'We can follow the footprints,' Illya says. He doesn't feel at all like hurrying.

'You sure you can make it? Maybe I can get them to – '

'I can make it,' he says.

What would they do, otherwise? Bring a stretcher for him, carry him into town? He couldn't bear that, just for a head injury. He's walked with worse.

'Okay,' Napoleon says. He puts an arm around Illya's shoulders. 'Come on, then. Best foot forward.'

Which is his best foot, he wonders? He steps, anyway, and his boots sink into the snow. It's over a foot deep, probably deeper in places. The moonlight makes little shadows slant across each footprint.

'Into the forest,' he says, and Napoleon nods.

'Where the others went. Follow the footprints. It's not far.'

'Is there a trail of breadcrumbs?'

Napoleon laughs. 'No breadcrumbs, but the footprints are clear.'

((O))

The trees are all around them. All the branches are drooping low with the heavy weight of snow. It looks so puffed and light that it seems impossible it could weigh anything, but Illya knows how heavy snow can be.

The footprints stretch out in front of them, a churned up mass, but the other passengers are gone by now. Illya stays close against Napoleon's side, because he feels sick and dizzy. He leans in against his warmth. His nose and cheeks and fingers are cold.

'You okay?' Napoleon asks him every now and then.

'Yeah,' he says.

It seems so far. How big is this forest? It must be a vast place, a dark place of nothing but trees and snow. It could stretch for miles. Maybe the village itself is a myth. Maybe they're miles from any kind of house, and they're walking deep and deeper into the forest, walking to their deaths. The people from the train were a myth. There never was any train. There's just the forest, the trees, the snow.

He blinks and steadies himself. He can't let his thoughts wander like that. He feels like lying down and sleeping. It would be so good to lie down. But he has to walk. Best foot forward. That must be his right foot, he thinks. He puts his right foot forward, then his left, then his right again. Both feet are the same. Both cold. The toes of both boots are crusted with snow.

The bruise on his head is a throbbing bar of pain. His stomach is a tight knot of nausea, clenched at the centre of him.

'Nearly there?' he asks.

Napoleon pauses in his step, and looks around. Everything is stark in the moonlight. There's the churned little path of footprints, but there are other footprints too. Hare, maybe. Deer. Fox. Everything is written on the snow.

'I think if we cut to the right we can take off a loop,' he says, and Illya trusts him, because his head aches too much to make a judgement himself.

They turn off the path. Is that a mistake, he wonders? Isn't it the first rule of the fairy tale, to not stray off the path?

There aren't wolves here, he thinks. He's sure there aren't wolves.

((O))

'Nearly there?' he asks again, after a while.

There are still trees all around them. He's tired and everything is a little blurry. He doesn't know if that's his eyes or just the light, or the way the snow makes everything soft. The world is so soft he could sink into it and let it envelop him.

'I'm sure we're nearly there,' Napoleon says, but there's a tone of doubt in his voice. 'Look. Can you see those lights?'

He blinks. Yes, there are lights. They must make for the lights. They're a soft gold, flickering, a warm colour against the colourless moonlight.

'Is that the town?' he asks.

'I'm sure it is,' Napoleon tells him.

There are tracks all around them, but not human. Hare and deer and fox, again. Rabbit, too, criss-crossing all over the fresh snow. There are tiny dimples that must be mice or shrew. Maybe there are polecats, weasels. There are the little three-toed footprints of birds. It must be a busy place, this forest, but he can't see anything live now.

They walk on through the snow. It's up to Illya's ankles. His toes are singing with cold. They kink around trees, left and right and left again. The lights are up ahead. They go around the thick, black bole of another pine, and –

It's a clearing. No town, but a clearing, with a single tree in the centre. A pine tree, the branches somehow almost free of snow. But the lights are coming from that tree. The branches are starred with candles. There are candles burning, fastened to the thick brush of needles, all the way up to the top, twenty feet above their heads. There's no wind. The flames are hardly flickering.

'Oh,' Illya says.

'Hey,' Napoleon says to him, squeezing an arm around his shoulders. 'Illya. Are you okay?'

'The tree,' he says.

'Beautiful, isn't it,' Napoleon replies. He doesn't seem surprised at all. It's as if this were the first thing he would expect to find, standing in the middle of a Norwegian forest.

This is where the animals are. There's a doe, her sides speckled tawny light and dark, eating something at the foot of the tree. There are birds, landing on the branches, taking off, landing again. Birds peck about on the ground, as if someone had strewn seed on the snow. Are those little black wriggles, those moving things, mice?

The tree is hung with webs, shimmering gold and silver, sparkling with the reflected light of the moon and the candles together. There must be ice crystals on the webs, like pearls on the thread of a necklace. There are icicles, glinting with frost and fire.

'Yelka,' he says, wonderingly. 'It's a yelka...'

'Illya,' Napoleon says. 'Illya?'

He seems to have very little strength. His knees want to bend. It's all very strange. The tree is sparkling in front of him. Then there's something else, something slipping across the snow, coming out of the trees. A troika, drawn by three white horses. The man holding the reins is white haired, white bearded, an old grandfather in sparkling blue robes. His granddaughter sits beside him, her hair shimmering with gold. The grandfather is the moon. She is the candlelight.

'Illya, can you make it to the sled?' Napoleon asks him. 'Come on, just walk a little further.'

He feels like he's going to be sick again. He mustn't be sick. Grandfather Frost is here, and his granddaughter Snegurochka in her sparkling crown. His knees won't hold him, and Napoleon is helping him walk on through the snow, to where the troika awaits.

He sinks into the seat. His head throbs and his stomach lurches, but he isn't sick. He lets his spine rest back, unknotting, lets hands tend to him. Is that Snegurochka bending over him, smiling, tucking something soft over him? Is it Napoleon? They're not the same, not at all, but he can't tell. Napoleon doesn't have hair that's gold like frost at dawn. He doesn't have such red, red lips. But the face swims. Is it Snegurochka or Napoleon?

He's wrapped in warm furs. He's so, so warm. The troika is plunging forward in a smooth, rushing movement. Snegurochka is beside him – or is it Napoleon? He wants to say something to Napoleon. He wants to tell Napoleon he shouldn't be jealous of Snegurochka. Although she is beautiful and young, she isn't what Illya desires, not at all. All he wants is Napoleon. He wants to be in that bed, with Napoleon, in a hotel in the town.

They're out on a vast open space. It's a lake, he thinks. A lake thick with ice and blanketed with snow. On the other side lights are twinkling. There are low houses over there, their lights little beacons. The troika is flying over the ice, so smooth they could be in the air. Are they in the air? Maybe they're high above the ground, flying. Everything is small and far away. He can feel Napoleon against him. He wants to be closer to him, in him, inside of him. He wants Napoleon to be the warm coat that protects him from the cold.

((O))

His head aches so fiercely. Oh, it's fierce. His mouth is dry. Everything is white. It's strange how everything is white, and light. He had been flying across the sky. The moon had been a silver coin against the velvet sky. The stars had been shining like great frozen diamonds. Ded Moroz had been flying him high in the sky, his three white horses pushing their hooves against empty air. The stars had been a whirl, a dancing, a conflagration around him.

'Hi,' Napoleon says.

He blinks. Out of the whiteness, the shape of Napoleon resolves itself. He's sitting near him, dark against the light. He's smiling. The bed is like crisp, warm snow. The covers are all white. The walls are white.

There's something compressing about his head. He moves his hand to touch it, and something pulls and stings in his arm.

'You're on a drip,' Napoleon says. 'Painkillers. Illya. Are you with me? Be careful of the cannula.'

He blinks. The whiteness is separating, becoming distinct things. Walls. Window blinds. Lights.

'You had a bleed on your brain,' Napoleon says. 'Thank God they sent that old man out with his sled. I don't think I could have carried you. I couldn't have gotten you here fast enough.'

'Ded Moroz?' he asks.

Napoleon's forehead creases. 'What's Ded Moroz? Illya, you collapsed in the snow. We were walking through the forest, and you collapsed on me.'

'In the forest – ' he begins, but he doesn't have words.

He looks around. His head aches. This isn't the forest. Everything is white, but it's warm. There's no snow. A hospital room. That's what this is.

'They must have been worried about you, the staff on the train. They'd sent an old guy with a sled out to fetch us. He got to us just in time. Bypassed the town we were meant to stay in and got you straight to the hospital here.'

'Oh, I feel like – I feel like – '

He wants to touch his head. It must be a bandage there, tight around his skull.

'Feel like someone drilled into your skull? That's because someone drilled into your skull, Illya. They released the pressure, and you started coming back straight away. It's amazing how quick it was.'

'Oh,' he says. He feels as if he's falling.

Napoleon holds up his hand in a V for Victory sign. 'How many fingers?'

'Four,' Illya says, deadpan. Then he smiles and says, 'Two, of course. Two.'

'I can see there's nothing at all wrong with you,' Napoleon says dryly, but he seems pleased. He looks tired, though. He looks very tired.

'When is it?' Illya asks. He has no sense of time passing at all.

'Day after Christmas. The twenty-sixth. You've been out a while. They didn't reduce the sedatives until they were sure the swelling had gone down.'

He lies there. Images swirl in his head. Creeping through that facility in the dark. The cold seeping up from his feet, seeping into his bones. Corridors, dimly lit. The guards, and –

'There was a woman,' he says.

'A very nice lady doctor operated on you,' Napoleon tells him. 'The best they have, apparently.'

'No,' he says. 'No.'

He would narrow his eyes, but it would hurt, he thinks, to move his face that much. He's thirsty. He wants cold water, but it would hurt to move.

'A woman,' he says.

He remembers now. He remembers standing in that office with the documents out on the desk. He remembers holding the little camera in his hands, positioning it above the pages, snapping page after page. There was a half-height wall and a glass window between the inner and outer office. He had been in the inner office, photographing those documents. Napoleon had been in the outer, keeping watch. And a woman had come in…

'A secretary,' he says.

A woman with glasses, a pretty woman, though, her hair piled up on her head, cats' eye glasses, a short skirt. She had seen Napoleon first. Illya had been bent over, busy photographing the documents. Napoleon had changed, as if a switch had been thrown. Standing there in his warm coat and his boots, with a dark hat pulled down over his hair, he had become as charming as if he had been in the best restaurant in Manhattan.

Napoleon had kissed her. How did he _do_ that? He was a stranger standing in a Thrush office, obviously up to no good. But as soon as he had kissed her, she had started to melt. He had seen it. Glancing up, he had seen the weakness in her, her bones turning to wax. He didn't know how Napoleon did that, but he knew how it felt. He knew how it was to be wax in the heat of Napoleon's passion.

That was what had distracted him. Napoleon had been distracting the woman, but seeing her reaction had distracted Illya enough that he lost his awareness of his surroundings. He had no idea where the man had come from. Maybe there was another door in the office, an entrance he hadn't noticed. But a slight noise had alerted him of something, he had straightened up, turned, and his face had met with a length of wood, swung like a bat, straight into his head. He had barely even felt the pain, because an instant later he was unconscious.

'A secretary,' he says. 'You kissed her.'

Napoleon has the decency to look contrite.

'Ah, yes,' he says. 'The secretary. I couldn't think of another way to stop her screaming.'

Now Illya wants to raise an eyebrow. He doesn't, because it would hurt.

'You have a gun, Napoleon.'

'You wanted me to shoot a woman?'

'I wanted you to – '

It must be the drugs, or the head injury, or something. It wells up, unstoppable. The thought of Napoleon kissing her like that. Napoleon kissing girl after girl after girl. Somehow he always manages to find a girl to kiss. He knows what it's like. He knows how Napoleon can turn your body to putty and mould it under his fingertips. He knows what it's like to be completely undone by the sensuality of him. It's such a precious thing. Such a precious thing. He wants to be the only body in the world that feels the strength of Napoleon's love.

'Hey, Illya, are you crying?' Napoleon asks.

His voice is gentle and concerned. Napoleon fumbles around at his pockets and brings out a handkerchief. He pats it at Illya's cheeks, and Illya wants to thrust it away. He's furious at himself, but he can't stop the tears and can't muster the strength to push away Napoleon's hand.

'I'm not,' he says. 'I'm not. It must be the drugs.'

'If it helps,' Napoleon says, 'I didn't shoot her, but I did pistol whip her, and I shot the guy who hit you.'

His smile is so soft and sympathetic that it makes Illya want to cry more. He wants to fall into Napoleon's arms, to be lying full against him, as close as he can be. He can't ask him to stop kissing girls. It's part of the job. But he wishes he could.

'I thought I saw Ded Moroz,' he says, because it's all he can think of to say. 'The old man with the sled.'

'Who is Ded Moroz?' Napoleon asks him gently. He obviously doesn't believe that Illya isn't crying, but it just as obviously doesn't matter. Illya could do anything in front of him, and be accepted.

'Ded Moroz – he's Grandfather Frost,' Napoleon looks no more enlightened, so he explains, 'He's like – a version of Santa Claus. It doesn't matter. Was there a Christmas tree in that clearing?'

Napoleon wraps a hand around his. Through his grip there's nothing but love. A warm hand, firm fingers, the gentle feeling of love.

'There was a tree,' he says. 'A tall fir. But it wasn't a Christmas tree, just a snowy old pine. The guy in the sled had a long white beard, but he wasn't Santa Claus, he was an eccentric old farmer from the edge of town who happened to have a sled and a horse to pull it. The staff from the train knew you had a bump on the head. They didn't know how serious it was. I didn't either, and I should have. I arrogantly assumed that you'd be okay, that you're always okay. But one of the guys from the train was local and was worried enough about you to ask the old guy to come out and pick us up. It was the only transport that could have gotten to us through that snow.'

It's all a weird muddle. Ded Moroz and Snegurochka in their sleigh, the beautiful tree towering above him with the candles and the glittering spider webs. Napoleon with that woman in his arms, kissing her with exactly the same kiss he uses with Illya. The wood swinging around to hit his skull. Stars, stars, snowflakes on a blue robe, sailing through the sky on a troika pulled by three white horses, so white they could be made of snow. He feels an ache for the New Years of his childhood, for the beautiful tree, for waiting with such excitement for Ded Moroz to come. He aches for his mother and his home. He aches to be home with Napoleon, to be able to shut out the world. They won't be able to celebrate Christmas together this year. Maybe they can celebrate New Year, Ukrainian style.

'I want to be going steady,' he says.

He feels like a girl, like a girl from a magazine. He doesn't have the right words. He only has the words he's heard the office girls use. He doesn't know another way to tell Napoleon that he needs it to be him, and only him.

'You – want – ?' Napoleon asks, bewildered.

'You,' he says. 'Just you and no one else. I want it to be you and me and no one else.'

Napoleon's hand squeezes on his. 'It _is_ you and me and no one else,' he promises. 'It has been for months, Illya. The only girls I've seen have been work. In the line of duty. I haven't enjoyed it. They feel like mannequins to me now. It's you who turns me on.'

He is tired and dizzy and suddenly so, so happy. It feels like a warmth that starts in his heart and spreads outwards to every inch of his skin, beyond his body, into the room beyond. He lies in the bed, his mind a spinning whirl. Stars and snowflakes. White, white, glistening snow. The wood hitting his skull. The blossom of pain. The pressure of Napoleon's hand around his.

He wants to be at home, naked with Napoleon in bed, nothing but hot skin and mouths and hands, their bodies pressed so hard together they can feel each other's bones. Glitter and stars and snowflakes in the decorations that Napoleon will strew about his apartment. The heat of flesh, the sensation of sinking into the man that he loves. He is flying in the sky, held up by Napoleon's love.


End file.
